{"id":665,"date":"2020-11-13T23:22:22","date_gmt":"2020-11-13T23:22:22","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/?p=665"},"modified":"2020-11-13T23:32:11","modified_gmt":"2020-11-13T23:32:11","slug":"working-through-surreal-childhood-experiences-in-wonderland","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/2020\/11\/13\/working-through-surreal-childhood-experiences-in-wonderland\/","title":{"rendered":"Working-Through Surreal Childhood Experiences in Wonderland"},"content":{"rendered":"

In \u201cRemembering, Repeating, and Working-Through,\u201d Freud describes \u201cexperiences which occurred in very early childhood and were not understood at the time but which were subsequently understood and interpreted. One gains a knowledge of them through dreams\u201d (Freud 149-150). Therefore, confusing events from childhood are made sense of and comprehended in adulthood through dreams. In Alice\u2019s Adventures in Wonderland, <\/em>Wonderland is only accessible through dreams; the sister\u2019s experience in Wonderland reveals that adults who experience this alternate universe can thus understand and \u2018work-through\u2019 their childhood experiences of unclear reality.<\/p>\n

Dreams play a central role in Alice\u2019s Adventures in Wonderland, <\/em>particularly at the end of the story. It is revealed that Alice\u2019s experiences were all a \u201ccurious\u201d and \u201cwonderful\u201d dream (Carroll 170). However, rather than ending with Alice\u2019s perspective, the story shifts to describe her older sister\u2019s reaction to hearing about Alice\u2019s adventures. The unnamed sister slips into her own dream \u201calive with the strange creatures of her little sister\u2019s dream,\u201d living within the same world Alice just described (Carroll 171). This transference of Alice\u2019s experience to her unconscious emphasizes the powerful influence of Wonderland. She then enters into an in-between state between dreams and reality, and predicts that Alice as an adult \u201cwould gather about her other little children, and make their eyes bright and eager with\u2026the dream of Wonderland\u2026 remembering her own child-life, and the happy summer days\u201d (Carroll 172). Her sister\u2019s reaction reflects a nostalgia for childhood and the \u201chappy summer days\u201d that perhaps have already escaped her. Her description of Wonderland making children\u2019s \u201ceyes bright and eager\u201d reveals that the sister\u2019s reaction is not unique, and that Wonderland has a significant influence on whoever hears about it. Alice\u2019s description of Wonderland then becomes a powerful escape where both adults and children can experience a world where reality is malleable, reflecting a childish innocence.<\/p>\n

Both the vividness and transferable quality of Alice\u2019s adventures make its revelation as a dream somewhat unexpected. In addition, we only hear briefly about Alice\u2019s subsequent thoughts on the experience; the rest is filtered through her older sister\u2019s perspective. Considering Freud\u2019s description of dreams, the sister\u2019s dream is a way for her to make sense of similar childhood experiences. Childhood is marked by not fully understanding the world around you; in her dream, Alice is frustrated by the absurdity of her environment, but eventually accepts and enjoys it. In comparison, adults typically reject and rationalize anything that does not fully make sense to them. Her sister’s reaction suggests that an adult Alice and whoever else experiences the dream of Wonderland are able to escape and make sense of their childhood experiences that felt surreal, and question and expand their own perceptions of reality.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In \u201cRemembering, Repeating, and Working-Through,\u201d Freud describes \u201cexperiences which occurred in very early childhood and were not understood at the time but which were subsequently understood and interpreted. One gains a knowledge of them through dreams\u201d (Freud 149-150). Therefore, confusing events from childhood are made sense of and comprehended in adulthood through dreams. In Alice\u2019s … Continue reading Working-Through Surreal Childhood Experiences in Wonderland<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3607,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[138877],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-665","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-fall-2020"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3607"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=665"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/665\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=665"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=665"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.dickinson.edu\/19thcennovel\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=665"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}